Mindful of Past, Clinton Cultivates the Military

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Mindful of Past, Clinton Cultivates the Military
By PATRICK HEALY
Published: March 27, 2007

Of all the early problems Bill Clinton faced as president, few stand out to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as more frustrating and avoidable than his rocky relationship with the military, her advisers say....

Mrs. Clinton, to use a phrase, has been practicing her salute. As a senator and now as a presidential candidate, she has cultivated relationships with generals and admirals, prepped herself on wartime needs and strategy, and traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan....

For Mrs. Clinton, exhibiting a command of military matters is not just about learning from her husband’s experience. It could be vital to her, as a woman seeking to become a wartime commander in chief, to show the public that she is comfortable with military policy and culture — and with the weight of responsibility that accompanies life-and-death decisions.

It is also part of an effort to shed the image some voters hold of her as an antimilitary liberal, defined by her opposition to the Vietnam War and, now, by her criticism of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war in Iraq....

***

In the Senate, Mrs. Clinton has supported expanding medical benefits for National Guard members and reservists and providing aid to those with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. She has also defied liberals in her own party at times, endorsing the expansion of the Army, supporting financing for missile defense, and refusing to support a total ban on land mines....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/us/politics/27brass.html?hp

[Big Pappa]

1. As well she should

since if she becomes president, the military will be in Iraq for quite sometime.

[blm]

2. Wouldn't back up Kerry on Tora Bora or Rumsfeld's firing in 2003-2004, even after Abu Ghraib.

That is showing command of military matters? It doesn't even show courage to back up your own party's candidates like Gen. Wes Clark and the party's nominee in 2004 - both who were REAL military experts.